‘There are more visitors because there are more people in the city,’ Hester said. ‘The country gentry who have come in for the parliament are curious to see Tradescant’s Ark. But if the business between the king and Scots grows more serious I think they’ll stop coming too. A trade like ours depends on people feeling safe enough to spend money on pleasure: on visiting, on rarities, and on their gardens. A country at war does not plant gardens.’

‘I still have my post at Oatlands,’ John pointed out. ‘And I will succeed my father as chief gardener and draw his wage.’

Hester nodded. ‘If the worst comes to the worst we can live on your wages.’

‘At the very worst we can close the Ark and live at Oatlands,’ John said. ‘The house there is only little; but we could manage for a while if we cannot afford to keep the Ark open.’

‘I’m not sure that I would want to live in the grounds of a royal palace in times like these,’ Hester said cautiously.

‘I thought you were such a royalist?’

‘I don’t want to take sides,’ Hester said. ‘Not when I don’t know exactly what the sides will be. Nor when I don’t know which side will win.’

The sides became rapidly clearer after the king’s army, unenthusiastic and poorly paid, were defeated by the Scots who went on to occupy Newcastle and Durham and hammer out a peace with the king which would force him to call a new parliament in England. It became clear to everyone in the country, except perhaps to the king and the queen, that the Scots and the Independent English thinkers had the king on the run. Hester started a correspondence with Mrs Hurte, the mother of John’s first wife, who kept her eyes and ears open in the City and was as sceptical as Hester, and rightly concerned for the safety of her grandchildren.

The new Parliament will impeach Strafford, just as the old one was wild to impeach Buckingham. If J has ever had any dealings with the Earl, or if his father kept any correspondence, it should be hidden or, better yet, burned. They are saying that Strafford is a traitor prepared to wage war against his own country for the benefit of the king and queen. They will accuse him of treason – treason against the people of England, and once one royal servant is accused how many others will be charged?

Hester went upstairs to the attic and opened John’s old chest of papers. The Tradescants had supplied seeds and young saplings to the Earl but there were no incriminating letters left from the years when John Tradescant had been known as a discreet man who regularly visited Europe and could be trusted with a letter or a message.